BOYS VOLLEYBALL: Braintree blanks North Quincy

The Wamps held on for a 31-29 victory in the middle game Tuesday night and moved into the Div. 1 South semifinals with a 3-0 road win.

Jay N. MillerFor The Patriot Ledger

QUINCY – The Braintree High boys volleyball team came into a packed and raucous North Quincy gym Tuesday and proceeded to silence the crowd right away, and for most of the night, en route to an impressive 3-0 victory in the quarterfinal round of the Division 1 South tournament.

No. 5 Braintree (14-5) advances to the semifinals against either No. 1 Newton South (21-0) or No. 9 Wellesley (12-7). Those teams play in the quarterfinals today.

The Wamps jumped out to a 10-2 lead in Game 1, a 13-7 edge in Game 2, and a 10-4 advantage in Game 3, effectively keeping the fourth-seeded Red Raiders back on their heels all night long. NQ (13-4) made a spirited rally in the middle game, tying the score at 23-all and forcing deadlocks on six straight points, before bowing 31-29.

Coming up short on that comeback surely took a lot out of the home team, but even more frustrating was the way the Wamps defense scrambled around to stymie almost every good NQ volley. The Red Raiders weren’t long on varsity experience this year, but they did have some certified big hitters in senior captains Efthim Butka and Oresti Bega, as well as the biggest volleyball rookie in the state in 6-9 senior Anthony Green, a converted basketball star.

But Braintree’s hustling and athletic frontliners battled the Raider stars evenly and kept many volleys alive long after most teams would have folded.

“We just have a lot of brand-new players, first-year varsity volleyball players, and in the end, I think it was just obvious they were really nervous tonight,” said NQ coach Jason Cai. “It is also tough when you start off being down five, six, or seven points, so you’re always coming back. It is tough to make that up when you only score two or three points at a time.

“That big second game rally was our best stretch,” said Cai. “But that also really drained us. I guarantee whichever team won that second game would’ve come out and won the third, because it was such a momentum swing.”

After that 10-2 start to the first game, Green keyed a brief NQ run to pull the hosts within 12-6, but with Wamps like junior Greg Zacharakis and senior Joey Hubbard nailing some thunderous kills, Braintree pulled away and won by a final of 25-16.

NQ never got untracked in the final game, dipping as low as 14-5 as Braintree kept the pressure on. Butka (7 kills, 5 blocks) and Green (10 kills, 2 blocks), and some Wamp errors, brought some hope as the home team closed to within 18-14, but Braintree held on for a 25-21 win.

“We knew coming in that North Quincy had some big hitters,” Braintree coach Roberta Stannard said. “We just tried to meet whatever we were seeing, adjust to whatever front line they brought out, and counter everything they did. It was a tough way to play, but we knew we had to play that way to beat them. We got good blocking up front, good defense and good diggers tonight, but I am not surprised.

“We expected a really tough game against North Quincy, because of their size and physicality, and we got that,” said Stannard. “It’s always tough when the other team has guys who may be able to hit over you. It’s the kind of matchup where you have to be able to change your gameplan, but our frontline guys are very athletic.”

While the Wamps roster has six seniors, Stannard said this year’s team was not long on experience. “We started from scratch,” Stannard said, “and kept focusing on fundamentals. That paid off, and tonight was all about fundamentals.”

Bega concluded his North Quincy career with 1,888 assists and a record of 45-9 as the starting setter.

NQ graduates seven seniors in all, with three of them seeing significant minutes, including, of course, Green. Cai can only dream of coaching a player that tall again. “I’ll settle for a good 6-2 freshman walking into practice next year,” Cai said with a smile.

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